


An Unexpected Rescue

by Sheliak



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Present Tense, Rescue, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-18 21:03:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20319463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheliak/pseuds/Sheliak
Summary: Kisame has no idea what he's getting (his village) into.





	An Unexpected Rescue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sheliak](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheliak/gifts).

Kisame is in much less pain than he would have expected when he wakes up. 

Actually, he wasn’t expecting to wake up at all. The last thing he remembers is collapsing with wounds in his gut and back, disgusted with himself for somehow letting a pack of bloodline-hunting missing-nin get the drop on him. His shishou will probably disown him for that, if he lives. 

On the bright side, survival actually seems like a possibility right now. 

He’s not bound—an excellent sign. Kisame levers himself up and takes a look around. 

He’s in a small cave, which isn’t very enlightening—there must be a thousand of them on the coast. There’s a fire nearby, and he thinks there’s a genjutsu hiding the entrance, though without being a specialist he can’t tell for sure. 

“Hi!” says a cheerful female voice.

His rescuer—he feels reasonably confident in that assessment—is a girl around his age, maybe a little older. She’s got bright pink hair, the kind of color that in Mist means someone had family in old Whirlpool. She’s wearing a forehead protector mounted on a red ribbon, but it’s so scratched that he can’t even tell what village she was from originally. 

If she ever was from a village. He supposes that a wandering ninja might scratch up their forehead protector like that—while claiming to be from any specific village is dangerous, missing-nin are feared and respected when mere wanderers are not. 

He’s pretty sure she’s alone. 

Which means that either she’s a naive idiot who should probably be dead by now, or strong enough that she doesn’t have to worry. Given that she presumably took down his captors alone, it might well be the latter.

She also already healed his injuries, which is unusual; a Mist nin would have asked for payment before healing him, even though he was a Swordsman’s apprentice. (Maybe _especially_ because he was apprenticed to one of the Seven; people tend to assume he can pay his way now rather than later.) Not that Kisame has ever dealt with missing-nin before, but he would’ve expected them to be less generous than the law-abiding kind. 

“Good work,” he says, surprised. It’s the best healing he’s ever had, not that there’s much competition. 

“I’ve never failed to heal someone who wasn’t already dead. Your injuries weren’t a challenge.” 

It’s quite a claim, but she doesn’t sound like she’s boasting. And Kisame doesn’t feel like arguing, under the circumstances. Instead, he says, “Thanks for the help.”

“I don’t like bloodline thieves,” his rescuer says with a scowl. 

“You have trouble with them before?” She doesn’t _look_ like she’s from any clan he’s ever heard of, but there are plenty he hasn’t. And Whirlpool’s descendants hide some pretty strange things. 

“Oh, not me. But they used to target some of my friends.” She smacks a hand against the ground to emphasize her point, and it causes a small earthquake. Both Kisame and the kunoichi look nervously up at the cave roof, but it holds. The girl looks a little embarrassed about that. 

Come to think of it, he’s heard of a famous kunoichi with about this skillset. Maybe Senjuu Tsunade has a secret daughter or kid sister or something like that. She had family from Whirlpool, Kisame thinks; maybe the hair skipped a generation or two. 

On the one hand, a Leaf missing-nin (or stray) in Mist territory is probably something Kisame should do something about. On the other hand, he’s never heard of her, which means she’s not in the bingo book, which means she’s either _not_ a missing-nin or she’s a missing-nin who, somehow, has never done anything to piss Hidden Mist off. 

“You know,” he says, “Hidden Mist could use a medic like you. Want a job?”

Her grin might mean that she has no idea what she’s getting into… or that _he_ doesn’t. “Why not?” She laughs. “It’ll be a change of pace.” She sticks out a hand. 

“Haruno Sakura.” 

“Hoshigaki Kisame.”

They shake on it, and Sakura grins as she hauls Kisame to his feet.

**Author's Note:**

> And then she takes over Mist from the inside, probably.
> 
> This fic was written for the prompts “Sakura rescues Kisame from bad mean evil bloodline thieves” and “Time-Travelling Sakura Being Seen As An All-Around Genius”, before I realized no one actually requested that tag combination and decided to focus on writing other things. Then, when I came back to it after the collection opened, I realized that someone had in fact requested the combo: me. 
> 
> Which seems in keeping for this exchange, somehow. Thanks everyone, it's been a blast. :D


End file.
